The invention relates to a toothbrush comprising a grip member and a brush member connected to the grip member, which brush member has a longitudinal axis and whose end remote from the grip member carries a bristle holder which is movable beyond a center position, which bristle holder is mounted on the brush member so as to be movable with respect to a holder axis which extends transversely to the longitudinal axis and which bristle holder has a holder surface which extends substantially transversely to the holder axis and from which, in the area of the holder surface, bristles project transversely to the holder surface, which bristles together form a bristle field and are arranged around the holder axis and of which the peripheral bristles situated at the periphery of the bristle field are longer than the bristles situated in the inner part of the bristle field.
The invention further relates to a brush member for a toothbrush, which brush member can be coupled detachably to a grip member of the toothbrush, which brush member has a longitudinal axis and at one end carries a bristle holder which is movable beyond a center position, which bristle holder is mounted on the brush member so as to be movable with respect to a holder axis which extends transversely to the longitudinal axis and which bristle holder has a holder surface which extends substantially transversely to the holder axis and from which, in the area of the holder surface, bristles project transversely to the holder surface, which bristles together form a bristle field and are arranged around the holder axis and of which the peripheral bristles situated at the periphery of the bristle field are longer than the bristles situated in the inner part of the bristle field.
Such a toothbrush of the type defined in the first paragraph and such a brush member of the type defined in the second paragraph are known, for example from the document DE 43 09 035 A1. This known toothbrush and this known brush member comprise a substantially circular disc-shaped bristle holder carrying a bristle field which can be enveloped by a tangential surface formed by a cylindrical surface. The bristle filed comprises tufts of bristles arranged in an outer ring, the bristles of all the tufts arranged in the outer ring have the same length. Inside the outer ring of tufts further tufts of bristles are disposed, of which all the bristles also have the same length but the length of the bristles of the inner tufts being smaller than the length of the bristles of the tufts disposed in the outer ring. Owing to the bristle field configuration described above, in which there is a stepped transition between the tufts in the outer ring and the tufts inside the bristle field, comparatively good cleaning results are attainable with the known toothbrush and the known brush member, but tests have revealed that in many cases the cleaning results are not wholly satisfactory.